Dr Helen Wallace, of campaign group Genewatch, said England, Wales and Northern Ireland must now follow Scotland's example where DNA samples of innocent people are destroyed.

She said: "We obviously welcome this judgment and it is clear that the Government has got it wrong. They should never have collected the DNA of innocent people in the first place.

"What we need now is legislation that makes it clear there are limits to how long people's DNA should be kept."

Dr Wallace added: "It is working in Scotland, they are removing people's DNA automatically and they are solving slightly more crimes.

"Changing the guidelines is no problem for the police, it is just getting the legislation in place."

Phil Booth, national co-ordinator of campaign group NO2ID said: "After years of fighting through every court in this land, decency, common sense and the law now says no charge, no DNA.

"This is a triumph for justice. Now the British government must act.

"Let us see the innocent removed from our DNA database which is now demonstrably an insult to privacy and liberty."

Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said: "This vindicates all that we have been saying about the Government's wrong-headed approach to this issue which has caused so much resentment amongst the law abiding majority and done so much to undermine confidence in the criminal justice system.

"The Home Secretary must now come forward and say what steps she will now take, given that the profiles of more than a million innocent people are currently on the UK's DNA database.

"We would have a Parliamentary debate about the database and put it on a statutory basis."

Former shadow home secretary David Davis said: "This ruling strikes a huge blow for British citizens over a practice that was created without proper debate or consultation.

"This means that the Government will have no choice but to remove a million innocent people's DNA samples from the database."

Conservative MP Grant Shapps said the ruling was a "good decision" which should act as a spur for legislators to put proper safeguards in place.

He said: "I have been arguing for a long time that Parliament needs to have a proper debate about this because it is a database that has been built up by stealth rather than intent.

"We have been calling on ministers to bring this back to the House of Commons so we can hold a proper debate about how to put it on a statutory footing. It has been built by the back door, rather than how Parliament originally intended."